Massive greening of Earth 700 mln yrs ago triggered off explosive growth of life

September 4th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Greening of roofs by having plants on them is gaining popularity in the US, where their numbers have increased by 30 percent from 2006 to 2007. Benefits include improved storm water management, energy conservation, reduced noise and air pollution, improved biodiversity, and even a better return on investment than traditional roofing.

August 28th, 2009 SYDNEY - The Tidbinbilla Deep Space Communication Complex outside Canberra, Australia, has sent out more than 25,000 messages to Gliese 581d, the nearest Earth-like planet outside our solar system, which might host life. According to a report carried out in www.news.com.au, the messages have come from 195 countries including some from places such as the Vatican city, Antarctica and Kosovo.

August 13th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study from two of NASA's Great Observatories has shown that radiation from massive stars may trigger the formation of many more stars than previously thought. While astronomers have long understood that stars and planets form from the collapse of a cloud of gas, the question of the main causes of this process has remained open.

July 31st, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study has found that comets contained vast oceans of liquid water in their interiors during the first million years of their formation, which may have fuelled life on Earth. According to Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe and his colleagues at the Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology, the watery environment of early comets, together with the vast quantity of organics already discovered in comets, would have provided ideal conditions for primitive bacteria to grow and multiply.

July 31st, 2009 LONDON - Did far-off comets housing vast oceans of water during the first million years of formation harbour some kind of primitive life? The existence of water in comets bolsters support for a possible connection between life on Earth and comets. The theory, known as Cometary Panspermia and pioneered by Chandra Wickramasinghe and the late Sir Fred Hoyle, argues that life was introduced to Earth by comets.

July 9th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Roughly 540 million years ago, something happened to fuel the explosive growth of complex, multi-cellular life, all over the planet, according to recent research. Researchers led by Arizona State University (ASU) geologist L.

July 1st, 2009 WASHINGTON - Having sex every day improves men's sperm quality, an Australian study has revealed. In a study of men with fertility problems, researchers found that daily ejaculation for a week cut the amount of DNA damage seen in sperm samples.

June 12th, 2009 WASHINGTON - In a new study, a group of international scientists took the help of a lunar eclipse to take a snapshot of earth's chemical fingerprint, which could help to identify planets most similar to earth where life may be thriving. The team used some of the world's largest optical and infrared telescopes located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in La Palma (Canary Islands, Spain) to observe light reflected from the moon toward the earth during a lunar eclipse on August 16, 2008.

June 9th, 2009 LONDON - A Brit cosmologist suggests that scientists searching for aliens in space instead focus their hunt on the Earth itself. Prof Paul Davies has said that the extraterrestrial creatures would be totally different from life that exists on our planet.

June 2nd, 2009 LONDON - A new study has determined that life on Earth is unlikely to have come from space viruses. Panspermia is the idea that life was seeded by extraterrestrial microbes in the form of hardy bacterial spores that hitched a ride on a space rock and landed on Earth.

May 28th, 2009 WASHINGTON - In a new research, scientists have determined that even tundra plant growth in the Arctic would be unable to offset the permafrost carbon release in the region. The report of the research team, led by a University of Florida (UF) ecologist, indicates that experimental results suggests tundra plant growth may keep up with rising carbon dioxide (CO2) initially.

May 27th, 2009 WASHINGTON - New fossil findings discovered by scientists have challenged the prevailing views about the effects of "Snowball Earth" glaciations on life, which is presumed to be responsible for widespread die-off of early life on Earth. By analyzing microfossils in rocks from the bottom of the Grand Canyon, the scientists from UC (University of California) Santa Barbara have challenged the view that has been generally assumed to be correct for the massive extinction of early life on Earth.

May 26th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A paleontologist has suggested that the Earth might be ultimately inhospitable to life, and that life itself might be the primary reason for shutting down Earth as a habitable planet. In the past 50 years, it has become commonplace to think of Earth as a nurturing place, straining mightily to maintain equilibrium so that life might continue and flourish.

May 6th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A University of Michigan astronomer has decided to use the Herschel Space Observatory to study the organic molecules that make up life on Earth in new detail in the warm clouds of gas and dust around young stars. The astronomer in question is Ted Bergin, an associate professor in the Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan.

April 15th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Ever dreamt of walking down the red carpet with none other than Leonardo DiCaprio at the premiere of his next film? Well, here's a golden chance to make your wish come true. The 'Titanic' actor-cum-environmental activist is auctioning the chance to attend the premiere of his upcoming drama Shutter Island on eBay.